Volcan Tajumulco

While in Guatemala I had a few thinks on my list of MUST DOs, one of which was to climb a volcano.

So, obviously, I decided to climb the tallest volcano in Guatemala.  In fact, it is actually the tallest peak in all of Central America!

The trick to climbing this volcano, however, was to be at the peak for sunrise as to get breathtaking views from the top.  This meant a few things:

1) we leave Xela at 10PM

2) we get to the trailhead around 1:30AM

3) we start hiking at 2AM as to be at the peak around 5:30AM so we wouldn't miss the sunrise

So, I talked with a local tour group and we scheduled said trip.  I bought a headlamp, I bought some "lycras" which are the closest things to long johns (and of course they were way too short) and we were all set!

Or so I thought... after Spanish class on Friday afternoon, I started feeling really crummy with fevers and chills and headache... I thought I was going to have to cancel, but with 800mg of ibuprofen, a 2 hour power nap, and a stubbornness that only a Buchheit could relate to I got on the bus to go to the trailhead.

Come to find out, my sudden fever would be the least of my worries...

Upon arriving to the trailhead, I immediately realized that I may had not brought enough warm clothes: it was gusting wind to ~25mph, it was "misting" and the baseline temperature at the bottom of the mountain was probably 40 without wind chill.

So we clicked on our headlamps and hoped for the best.  I'm not one to complain about outdoor activities or being uncomfortable, but this hike could have been best described as one of Dante's levels of hell yet to be discovered:

I was slightly febrile. It turned from mist to intermittent rain showers. As our oxygen supply decreases with elevation gain, the wind gust only increased in intensity. My glasses were practically worthless given the weather, and - to top it all off - I was short of breath, had a headache and was nauseous in the setting of being at 13,845 feet above sea level.

Then to place a metaphorical maraschino cherry on this "shit sundae" of an experience, we got up to the summit at 4:30AM and had to wait around for 2 hours before sunrise... you might be thinking to yourself: at least they had some time to rest at the top. In actuality- we were cold, we were wet, we were tired.

I found myself  huddled together with 2 4th year med students who I had known for 5 days and a firefighter from Idaho that I had known for 4 hours to prevent freezing to death for what seemed like an eternity...

Was it worth it?

Hell yea.

Let's just say that I won't be hiking anymore volcanos in the next 3 weeks.